1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computer solution directed to the computer problem of incomplete communications when using computer-mediated communication such as text messaging, short message services, and social media posting. The invention is directed to system of augmenting text, to include the ability of the recipient to experience the non-textual communications normally associated with human communications and interactions.
2) Description of Related Art
Expressive communication is effective communication. Nonverbal information is an important cue to the speakers meaning; especially when the literal content may be ambiguous. The same statement, depending on the tone and emphasis, among other acoustic parameters, may be sarcastic or serious, sad or confused, tired or disinterested. This remains a common problem over computer mediated communication (“CMC”) platforms such as text messaging, short message services (SMS), instant messaging, emailing, social media posts, and the like. The inability to communicate these nonverbal/non-textual message in CMC is a problem that needs a resolution. Without such a resolution, the risk of miscommunication is substantially increased.
The inability to communicate nonverbally over CMC platforms leads to a high degree of miscommunication and increased susceptibility to misinterpretation. These limitations of expression and lack of alternatives continues to be a frequent problem within messaging applications. This problem as given rise to the use of emojis or emoticons as the principal method for conveying emotion over text messaging. However, these emojis cannot function as a means of conveying the vast range of human emotion, nor can they provide the information necessary to determine the context or meaning of a message.
For example, to attempt to improve the inability of conveying emotion in text and the disadvantages emojis or emoticons, attempt such has those found in U.S. Pat. No. 6,522,333 have appeared. This reference purports to provide “a system and method for remote communication is disclosed that allows communication over a network but still provides a behavioral context within which the communication is interpreted”. However, it is a cumbersome and slow system and method using one window containing a visual representation of the user (e.g. a graphic depiction of a face) and for each recipient, other windows containing visual representations for that recipient. This system and method is not well suited for SMS nor social media posts.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,999,989 also seeks to provide civeo return receipt information for electronic mail by adding video of the electronic mail recipient. U.S. Pat. No. 7,039,676 is directed to system, method, and program of the invention captures actual physical gestures made by a participant during a chat room or instant messaging session or other real time communication session between participants over a network and automatically transmits a representation of the gestures to the other participants. Again, this system is not well suited for CMC and virtually impractical for social media posts. United States Patent Publication 2013/0128058 seeks to provide a request to capture a reaction of a user when the message is displayed to that user/recipient. United States Patent Publication 2011/0181605 is directed to a method that is provided for creating a personal animated entity for delivering a multi-media message from a sender to a recipient. U.S. Pat. No. 8,988,490 is directed to a system that generates parameter information that shows states of a user. The generated parameter information is transmitted through a network to an information processing apparatus of a communication partner capable of generating an image that reflects the state of the user on the basis of the parameter information.
There has also been attempts to adapt to text of a message to express emotion. For example, United States Patent Publication 2011/0055675 is directed to a method of modifying portion of the textual message dynamically to indicated a heightened emotional value. By depressing a key on a keyboard for a period longer than a typical debounce interval, a plurality of text parameters for the character associated with the depressed key are accessed and one of the text parameters is chosen. Animation processing is then performed upon the textual message and the indicated portion of the textual message is visually emphasized in the animated text message. However, this invention requires that the force exerted upon a key of a keyboard is known which is difficult, if not impossible, with modern communications devices such as smart phones and the like. Further, the user is forced to determine the effect on the text to represent an emotion which suffers the same problem with miscommunications of text itself.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a system for communicating nonverbal information over CMC platforms.
It is another object of the present invention to properly animate a text message to communicate nonverbal information associated with a text message without an intermediate processing server.
It is another object of the present invention to properly animate a text message to communicate nonverbal information associated with a text message that can be used with SMS.
It is another object of the present invention to properly animate a text message to communicate nonverbal information associated with a text message for social media posting.